Dr. Kim Kandl
Associate Professor, Department of Biology
Biomolecular Science Program Director
Ph.D. in biological sciences at Purdue University, Lafayette IN
E-mail - kandl@stolaf.edu
Phone - 507-786-3978
Office - Regents Hall 382
Classes - Cell Biology and Genetics, Intermediate Genetics, Desert Biology, Molecular Biology, Equatorial Biology, Molecular Genetics, Practical Methods
Research - Actin Cytoskeleton and Translation in Yeast
Work in my lab focuses on using the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, as a model organism to study the role of the actin cytoskeleton in protein synthesis (translation). Translation is a key step in the expression of most genes. An interaction between components of the translational machinery and actin implicate the cytoskeleton in the compartmentalization of translation so that proteins are made where they are needed in the cell.
The actin cytoskeleton gives cells shape and structure, and actin is involved in a number of cellular processes including cell division and growth. More recently, evidence from the our lab and others has shown that actin interacts with a number of protein factors involved in translation, and our genetic studies have suggested that the actin cytoskeleton plays a role in translation. This previous work demonstrated that although actin does not have a global effect on translation in yeast, actin does play a role in translation fidelity, as yeast strains with actin mutations read through stop codons. Our work uses a variety of techniques from the fields of genetics, biochemistry and cell and molecular biology to test the hypothesis that the fidelity defects of actin mutants are caused by altered physical or functional interactions with translation factors known to affect translation fidelity.